


Infinitely Vivid

by rosekings



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 10:26:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15638859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosekings/pseuds/rosekings
Summary: Mike laughs, taking her hand as they walk. “Yeah, it’s the sunset. Happens every evening.”Sunset. El immediately understands the term – the sun settles in for the night. But the colors it brings with it are pure magic.





	Infinitely Vivid

“Do you see that?” El asks, pointing upwards.

Mike peers up through the trees. “The sky?”

She nods. “It’s not blue.”

In fact, it isn’t. It’s a melody of colors that El has only seen a few times, shot through with streaks of purple and pink and orange and other shades that she can’t put a name to. It’s a wondrous sight that never fails to dazzle her, and she’s noticing it once again as Mike walks her through the worn forest path back to the cabin, after one of the rare summer days that Hopper allowed her to be with her friends.

Mike laughs, taking her hand as they walk. “Yeah, it’s the sunset. Happens every evening.”

Sunset. El immediately understands the term – the sun settles in for the night. But the colors it brings with it are pure magic.

“It’s beautiful,” she says, stumbling on a branch as she attempts to keep her eyes on the brilliance above her.

“I guess you don’t really see them a lot, do you?”

She shakes her head. In the lab, outside was unheard of. When she was on the run, she didn’t have the time to look up. Her eyes were always on what was in front of her, focused on the moment. And now, though everything has slowed down over the spring and summer, Hopper always insists the curtains in the cabin stay drawn. Even when she’s out on the porch, the trees block most of the view above.

So, no. She doesn’t see them a lot. But she wishes she did.

She wishes a lot of things.

 

Hopper takes her along on an errand run. There was a lot of begging involved, a lot of promises to stay by his side and keep her mouth shut and a lot of whining about how she’s been locked up all summer, but finally, he gave in.

She loves looking at Hawkins through the window of her dad’s truck. Of course, she’d prefer to see it from the sidewalk with her friends, but she’ll take what she can get. People stroll about everywhere, relaxed in their floral prints and carrying ice cream cones (Max had introduced those to her – Hopper says it was the worst thing she could do, given that it only encouraged El’s sweet tooth). 

They stop by the grocery store first. Hopper tries his best to limit what El throws in the cart, but he gives up on aisle three and lets her get whatever, much to her delight. She ignores the more-than-curious glances in her direction, the ones that disappear when she looks over her shoulder. They’ve been coming for quite some time, though now slowing as people get used to the idea of stern, no-bullshit Police Chief Jim Hopper having a daughter. _Where’d she come from? Who’s her mother? Why is she rarely ever out? Where do they even live?_ El has heard these questions in hushed whispers multiple times, but ever since Hopper told her what to expect, they no longer distress her. _Let people think what they want,_ he said to her. _They’re not gonna bother you._

They swing by the station next, and El sits across from Flo’s desk while Hopper grabs something from his office. 

“Hey, sweetheart.”

El smiles. Flo is always nice to her, offering her amber-wrapped butterscotch candies from the glass bowl on her desk and bemoaning how hard Hopper is to deal with – it always makes her laugh.

“Hi.”

“He giving you enough to eat?” she asks without looking up from the papers in front of her. Before El can respond, Hopper strides out.

“You think I can’t raise a kid or something?” he says gruffly. Flo hums, peering at him over the rim of her glasses.

“I think you’re better suited to a dog, but that’s not my opinion to give, now is it?”

Hopper snorts. “Come on El, this woman’s a bad influence.”

El snags a butterscotch before she leaves.

 

The last stop of the afternoon is the hardware store. El’s never been inside before; she’s never had reason to. A big and wide-open place, tall aisles of shelves stretch towards the ceiling and it smells like the stack of firewood that Hopper keeps out behind the cabin. She trails behind Hopper until he comes to a spot near the end of an aisle where the shelves are stocked with lamps and lightbulbs. El rocks back and forth on the balls of her feet as he mutters to himself, looking over the lights. Itching to find something interesting, her attention wanders to the end of the row and what could be lurking around the corner.

Max once told her, while painting El’s nails a dark blue, that _it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission._ El’s not quite sure how many situations those words apply to, but she decides she can put them to use right now. 

Before Hopper can finish picking out a light to fix the broken one in the bathroom, she darts off behind him as quietly as she can and rounds the corner. Before she gets far, though, she stops dead in her tracks, her breath catching at the sight in front of her. She can’t determine exactly what she’s looking at – a rainbow, maybe? Rows and rows and rows of colored squares cover the back wall of the store, cascading in a bright flood of color. They paint the wall in every shade imaginable, and it’s unlike anything she’s ever seen before.

A heavy sigh comes from behind her. “What’d I tell you, kid?”

She ignores his reprimand. “What _is_ all that?

He looks at the wall. “That’s the paint colors they have for sale. You know, to paint walls and stuff.”

“Wow,” she breathes. She crosses the short distance to the wall so she can brush her fingers across the squares. To her surprise, they’re paper, and behind each color sits a stack of more identical ones, each labeled in small white letters at the top.

“If we move into a real house this fall, maybe you can pick a color for your room,” Hopper says. She looks over her shoulder, eyes wide.

“Really?”

He nods, smiling, and she turns around again. It really is amazing – she’s never seen so many colors in one place. As her eyes wander over the pinks, a flash of sky and trees tugs at her memory. It’s a sunset. Happens every evening. She remembers that walk with Mike, and how she wanted to be able to put a name to every color she saw. Then, as she stares at the stacks of colored papers, an idea comes to mind.

“Come on, let’s go check out,” Hopper says, his boots squeaking on the tile floor as he turns away. She nods absently, her fingers reaching out to the cards. She quickly grabs one from every shade of red, orange, yellow, pink, and purple that she can find, and when she has a stack as thick as her wrist and Hopper is calling after her, telling her to move her ass or they won’t stop for ice cream, she shoves them in the front pocket of her overalls and runs after him.

 

Grass, soft and bright green, tickles El’s legs as she leans back on her palms in Mike’s backyard. Mike sits cross-legged next to her, his D&D notebook in his lap and his tongue between his teeth. As crickets chirp around them and they share a companionable quiet, El watches the sky and thinks back to the day they’ve had. She decides it’s been her favorite out of all of them – she went with Mike and the rest of the party to the quarry, where the water was blue and refreshing against the August heat. After water battles and sunburns and so much laughing that El’s sides now hurt, they got milkshakes and spent some time at the arcade, where they all shouted over each other in an attempt to teach El how to play _Dig Dug._ Despite their efforts, she never really got the hang of it, but it was fun.

Now, Mike looks up at her curiously. “Do you know if you’re coming to school yet?”

El shakes her head, pulling her lip between her teeth anxiously. “Hopper still hasn’t decided.”

School starts in three weeks and she doesn’t know if she’ll be allowed to go. It’s been a subject of much contention in the Hopper household, the cause of many slammed doors and hours of silent treatment. 

“Hey, don’t worry about it, okay? I’m sure Hopper will say yes, and even if you can’t go, you’re not missing out on much. School kinda sucks.”

She nods, pushing her worry away for the time being, and Mike smiles at her.

“We still have an hour or so,” he says, glancing at his watch. “Do you wanna do something?”

“Um…”

She casts her mind around, her eyes turned skyward, and just when she’s about to settle on I just like being with you, the pale color of the sky sparks her memory and she shoots to her feet with a start.

“What?” Mike asks in alarm, looking up at her.

“Wait here!”

She darts inside before he can protest and finds her backpack on the basement table. From the inside pocket she pulls the stack of color cards she took almost a month ago. She runs back outside and collapses next to Mike, thrusting the cards at him.

“Look!” 

He furrows his eyebrows as he takes the stack from her. “Paint samples?”

“I want to match these colors to the ones in the sunset. With you,” she adds eagerly, because that was what she had originally imagined. Mike helped her in almost everything – why not this, too?

The look Mike gives her then makes her insides go warm and fuzzy, the same way they do when he smiles and laughs and holds her hand and kisses her. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever get used to it. She doesn’t think she wants to.

“Okay,” he says, smiling. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

They lay shoulder-to-shoulder in the grass and go one card at a time, holding it up against the sky to perfectly match its shade to the vibrant sunset. From Cardinal and Honeysuckle to Cotton Candy and Amethyst, they carefully debate each one, and by the time they finish, they’re giggling and happy and all El can see is color. Her time in the lab was filled with nothing but sterile whites and plain grays, and she never really wants to see those again. She wants to see these, these bright, hopeful colors that mark newness and joy and life.

“Time’s almost up,” Mike mumbles once he puts the last card – Deep Ocean – down, rolling onto his side. El takes one more look at the sky. The only traces of the sunset left are fading streaks of orange and purple. Everything else is a dark blue, spotted with twinkling stars and a bright silver moon.

She turns onto her side. As the tips of their noses brush and Mike breaks into a smile for no particular reason and her insides do that swooping thing again, she thinks that if she had to associate a color with him, it would be a dark green, the color of the evergreens outside the cabin. Relaxing and constant, sturdy and familiar.

“Thank you for doing that with me,” she mumbles. Mike grins, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to her lips. Her toes curl, and she feels so much brighter than before.

“Just wait ‘til you see the sunrise.”

 

When she dumps her backpack out on her bed later that night to go over all the colors again, because she just can’t get them out of her head, she finds one that has been written on. It’s a pale pink card, and though she thinks it was originally named Ballet Flats, she can’t know for sure because the label has been blotted out in black marker. Underneath it is written _El Hopper._ She flips the card over curiously.

_This is the color that I think of when I think of you. Can’t wait to watch the next sunset with you!_

Oh, Mike. She can’t help the smile that spreads across her face. Sweet, kind, unending loyal Mike, who she very may well love with all her heart.

This, she decides, will be the color that she paints her new walls.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell with me into the void about this hella hiatus on [my tumblr](https://dustinhendrsn.tumblr.com)


End file.
